Resources and educational tools launched to support children’s mental health
- eduu.school and Kooth partner to provide critical mental health education, support and services to children
- The online learning platform offers extensive mental health support through an integrated curriculum
London, 19 February 2021 – Online mental wellbeing service Kooth and online learning platform eduu.school, in partnership with Shireland Collegiate Academy Trust, GLUU and Hodder Education Group, today announced a co-curated mental health-focused curriculum. The ground-breaking partnership will provide students using eduu.school with direct access to support via Kooth.com, including an anonymous self-referral platform, magazines, forums, activity centres and text-based, professional counselling.
The new partnership integrates mental health support into the digital curriculum, ensuring children are supported at all levels through their educational development. Mental health resources and support mechanisms provided by Kooth will be blended into the eduu.school digital curriculum for key stages three and four, with over 1,600 hours of resources for each key stage.
The integration aims to make the support and resources a part of the everyday learning experience, destigmatising mental wellbeing. The pandemic has exacerbated mental health problems for many young people. Kooth’s January data* indicates a bleak image: 39 percent of young people are presenting with anxiety and 21 percent are self-harming, with another 21 percent experiencing suicidal thoughts, an increase of 40 percent and 47 percent on the same week last year, respectively.
Sir Mark Grundy, CEO, Shireland Collegiate Academy Trust and eduu.school partner said: “There has never been a more urgent need to adjust our curriculum and pedagogies to reflect the emerging landscape resulting from COVID-19 and DfE remote learning guidelines. The education system needs to respond quickly but thoughtfully to help our children by evolving a new model which places equal emphasis on wellbeing and attainment.”
Tim Barker, CEO, Kooth said: “At Kooth, we are focused on delivering effective, personalised mental health care for everyone. Greater integration of mental health into the curriculum will prompt discussions, reduce stigma and ensure that students know that there is help available if they need it. At a time when more students are struggling than ever before, we believe that our collaboration with eduu.school is an important step toward providing the additional support that they deserve.”
The co-curated mental health and wellbeing programme will include integrations with Office365, Google Classroom and other popular platforms, and offer options for both synchronous and asynchronous learning and assessment. The content has been designed to meet Ofsted requirements for remote learning and DfE remote learning guidelines, and it will be accessible to students whether they are learning from home or attending school in-person.
